Difference between revisions of "Art Show"

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and many more to come
 
and many more to come

Revision as of 10:53, 16 December 2005

Many conventions have art shows. This is most often like an art gallery set up for the purpose of displaying genre related art. This art can vary from from jewelry, to large or small sculptures, up through automobile sized objects or wall sized tapestries. The majority of pieces are typically paintings and drawings, most sized less than 20 x 30 inches. Often the art is for sale.

What’s an art show?

It must contain art. Everything else is optional. The art is usually for sale by written bid and a voice auction, though neither is required. Art shows at conventions usually consist of work by many artists, obtained from the artists (or their agents). Most of it is for sale and sales are usually handled by the show. It may be original work, prints, or both. There is seldom very much editorial control. Other types of shows – beyond the scope of this article – include theme shows or historical retrospectives.

Art shows are labor intensive before, during, and after the convention (hundreds of staff-hours for a medium size show). Why have one at all? Even standard “convention type” art shows vary in their purpose. Some common reasons for having an art show include:

1. You just like seeing art. A good reason on a personal level, but not convincing to the convention committee.

2. Prestige. Running an art show will enhance the prestige of you and your convention. However, this requires a good art show. A bad art show is worse than none.

3. Audience draw (i.e., other people like seeing art). Having an art show will draw more people to the convention. This is a major reason conventions hold art shows [1] ("the audience expects it" is the same reason in reverse). This also requires a good art show.

4. Make money. Alluring, but many art shows don’t make enough to cover the cost of their function space (it’s hard to say how many, because few conventions publish their budgets or allocate the cost of function space back out to the individual functions). On the other hand, achieving reasons 1, 2, 3 and 5 at no net cost is good.

5. Fulfill non-profit status. Many conventions are run as non-profit educational organizations (501(c)3, in the US). An art exhibit is a way to educate your members. This is especially true of retrospective or themed exhibits.

These reasons may determine whether you hold a traditional "show", an exhibit, or an "artists’ alley"; how the art is sold, and what you allow in the show. (see Art Show types)

  1. *  It says “a major” rather than “the major” only because I suspect it’s outweighed by force of habit.

Your customers

A convention art show has three sets of customers to satisfy. In order of decreasing obviousness, they are artists, buyers, and convention. They want different things and you must satisfy all of them. Fail to keep any of them happy and your show will fail.

The art show requires artists. Without artists, you have no art and nothing to show. You must keep the artists reasonably happy. But you can't please them at the expense of the buyers. Artists won't display work if no one sees and buys it. All the money for the show comes from buyers. The show receives money from artists, but this money is built into their prices - they pay because they expect to receive the money back from the buyers. No buyers means artists lose money means no artists.

The convention provides the buyers. It expects to gain something in exchange, which could be money, publicity, audience draw, or prestige. It wants the art show to make the convention look good. It may or may not care how the show is run – as long as it’s run well. It does not want to hear complaints or lose money. If the convention decides it no longer wants the art show, you won’t have one.

(The art show is part of the convention. Doesn't calling the con a customer tend to separate the two? And isn't that a bad thing? (Yes, and usually.) On the other hand:

  • Remember your management-speak. The con as a whole is an internal customer of the art show.
  • Many cons don't have art shows (especially gaming cons). The art show is an optional part of a con. Some cons decided they had better things to do with the function space and dropped the art show. The art show has to justify itself to the con.
  • There are cons where the art show is a separate entity - not only with its own budget, but also where the person(s) in charge of it get(s) to keep profits from the art show without regard to how the rest of the convention did financially (e.g., ASFA running the Print Shop at Worldcons).
  • also see Art Show - Who Should Run )

What each customer tends to want:

Artists Buyers Convention
Many buyers Few buyers Many buyers
Few artists Much art Much art
High sales per panel Bargains High overall sales
speed and convenience speed and convenience minimize expense and effort

Notice that each of the three customers wants something different. It's your job to keep them all happy. You can't do that by favoring any one - you have to balance their desires.

Buyers and artists conflict solely on prices. Artists want high prices, which Many buyers and Few artists tends to give them. Buyers want low prices, which Much art and Few buyers tends to yield. Conventions usually want Much art and Many buyers. That's a good compromise between artists and buyers - if you can do it (see Art Show - Rough size estimate ).

The last row is a common source of conflict between the convention and artists or buyers. Each prefers their own convenience. Convenience for artists seldom conflicts with convenience for buyers, but increasing convenience for buyers or sellers often involves more work or expense for the convention. Some examples:

  • Staying open longer - more work for the art show staff, but more convenient for buyers and generates more sales for artists.
  • Packing buyers' art purchases - more work for the art show staff, plus the expense of packing materials. But more convenient for buyers and it might generates extra sales for artists.
  • Returning all mail-in art the day after the convention - might be awkward for the convention, but saves artists money.

You can favor either the convention or the artists and buyers on this one, or split the difference. Does your art show need to attract more buyers and artists? If so, extra services are problably worthwhile. If not, you may not want to expend the effort.

The cost to the convention of providing extra services is obvious; the benefits are not. Do those extra services significantly increase sales or the quality of art displayed? I can't prove it - I can only say that when MileHiCon increased services for buyers and artists, their art show sales rose steadily from $3,000 to $13,000 over a period of ten years. On the other hand, MileHiCon has few buyers or local artists [2]. If your convention has many buyers in an area with many artists, you would probably see only a small increase.

On the other hand, I know many cases where an artist refuses to send art to a convention where they sell well, just because it's so difficult. Removing these barriers isn't really an extra service, and a lot of them can be removed at little to no cost to the con; the con just keeps doing it that way because that's the way they've always done it.

  1. *  MileHiCon grew from about 500 to 800 attendees during that period. And while Denver has a fair number of SF artists, there aren't any from nearby cities because there are few nearby cities (the nearest major city is either Albuquerque at 444 miles or Salt Lake City at 512 miles (is Albuquerque is a major city?)).


Requirements

An art show can absorb a nearly infinite amount of labor. There will always be something else that might be nice to do, if only you had more help. But there's an essential minimum without which you shouldn't run an art show at all.

Financial

  • Art shows require space. This generally costs money.
  • Panels and hanging hardware cost money.
  • Expenses for mailing, printing, and consumables.
  • Money paid for art must be passed on to the artists and may not be diverted for other purposes. If you can’t guarantee this, don’t have an art show.

Time and help (and money)

These are to some extent interchangeable. With lots of money, you can arrange for as much time and help as you need. As cons seldom have lots of money, they will instead ask you to minimize the time the art show uses its room. How much time you need depends on how much help you have. One person working alone can set up a huge art show - but it would take months. A well-coordinated army of 500 trained art show staff could set up the same show in an hour or two [3]. When setting the function space schedule, conventions may assume that there will be plenty of help for setting up the art show. This does not mean there actually will be. You must ensure that the time allotted corresponds to the amount of help that will actually be available. You must also limit the size of the show to what you have staff and time for.

  1. *  And all the oxygen molecules could suddenly rush to the far corner of the room. The resulting hypoxia would explain expecting 500 trained art show staff.

Further Art Show topics

Art Show - Types and priorities

Art Show - Financial arrangements

Art Show - Timeline

Art Show - Who Should Run

Art Show - Rough size estimate

Art Show - Coordinate with Convention Committee

Art Show - Budget Estimate

Art Show - Policies

Art Show - Mailing List

Art Show - Check your space

Art Show - room layout

Art Show - Set panel and table limits

Art Show - Refine budget and set fees

Art Show - Set art show hours and schedule

Art Show - forms

Art Show - rules

Art Show - Crowding Panels

Art Show - Artist Registration

Art Show - Contacting artists.

and many more to come